Standard 2.4
This standard is one that always preached on during professional development seminars everywhere. Higher Order thinking goes hand in hand with authentic learning. Holding our students to a higher standard is key to creating meaningful learning opportunities. I chose to use my Unit Plan as the artifact to show a period of authentic learning going on over a prolonged period. In this unit plan the concept that I am teaching is the American Revolution. This is broad topic, so it gave me plenty of leeway to cover the standards that I needed to. For this unit I had to create an online learning experience for my students. I set up a Wikispaces to house all of my material as well as a Testmoz for assessments for students to take. The unit has assignments that range from Publisher documents to audacity files for reflections. In each module, students were to watch Youtube videos selected for them, as well as answer discussion questions set aside from the readings. Each week students were to reflect about learning and share with me to meet requirements of learning. The whole online experience is one that is predicated around student driven learning rather than the traditional classroom. This type of learning helps create an atmosphere of discovery for the students and the teacher just becomes a guide.
For each module in the unit students are given specific tasks to help learn the material needed to master the standards. Throughout the modules students will encounter activities that higher order thinking skills will be necessary. Students will be answering discussion questions created using Blooms Taxonomy and reflecting about prior lessons. Students not only have to answer questions about the readings and videos, but they have to collaborate with other classmates carry out thoughtful discussions about one another. Students have to follow a process or list of activities so that they can be able to complete the right assignments. From the questions given for the readings, the videos, and the readings students will create small formative projects to reassess whether material was learned. Throughout the module students are to download handouts specifically detailing what they are to complete and how. The culmination of the discussions, assignments, and reflections will allow students to be creative in producing a formative product. Students throughout the module will show critical thinking skills through discussions and assignments as well as logical, reflective skills from collaborating with their colleagues. There are also handouts detailing how to set up the accounts needed to fully have the online experience. These handouts and accounts are for Audacity and Wikispaces. Students should already have access to Microsoft Office for the use of presentations, publisher, and word processor. While this topic was very broad, I was able to create a good bit detail for students to access. I added readings from other sources rather than the school provided textbook. Here is where the discovery kicks in the students. Reading and watching, while creating projects, and collaborating with colleagues gives students an atmosphere of higher order thinking. Rubrics have been put in place in the unit to hold students to a higher standard, so that mediocre work is not accepted.
I learned that creating an online unit was very time consuming. I learned that you have to have a large amount of material for this type of experience so that your students stay engaged and learning is worthwhile. Providing more information than is needed will create student discovery about content that may not be assessed, but meaningful to the overall concept. I also learned that I think I would like to start my own video series of lectures and discussions, rather than to borrow from another author. In addition to the handouts I would create screencasts to make modeling the information better for the students in my classes. If I could add screencasts this would show students how easy signing up and working with the technology can be. I think that I would also, like I mentioned above, like to create or video my own lectures instead of using others. I could still use the others but as a supplement to mine. An online learning experience can have a huge impact on student achievement school wide. Sharing these lessons with other faculty members will strengthen our staff and strategies used for student success. Our student body, if implemented by all teachers, will be pushed to think and create in a ways they never have had to before. This type of course allows for tiered instruction which can create different levels of mastery especially if you have a mixed classroom. This way you create an atmosphere where gifted students and learning disabled students can learn in the same setting. This also helps to not leave any one group behind. Professionally this type of project can help other teachers who may want to venture into this type of learning platform. This can be used as an example to show others how it can work and how it can be successful.
unitplan_intro_to_online.docx | |
File Size: | 33 kb |
File Type: | docx |